too clever by half. He’s too smart for his own good. Like you, Freddie.”
Freddie shook his head. “Excuse me, Sergeant, I have to go,” he said and brushed past me.
“Don’t think this is over, mate. You know something and by God I’ll find out what it is!”
A crowd of bidders, assistants and ringmen were looking at us now.
Freddie gave his shaggy head an embarrassed little shake. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Detective, but you’re not going to intimidate me. We’ve put up with eight hundred years of intimidation by the English and we’re not to stand for it any more. That, I promise.”
“What are you going to do? Shoot me?” I said.
“If you don’t stop bullying me, you’ll certainly be hearing from my lawyer,” he said, closed the van door and drove off with his purchases.
“Bloody peelers,” somebody muttered but when I looked to see who it was everyone hid their faces.
The crowd dispersed and I stood there watching Freddie’s car drive along the Marine Highway. I walked back to Laura’s. My tea was still warm. She asked me what I’d been doing but I was too embarrassed to tell her. If Crabbie had heard me spout all that he wouldn’t have been able to look me in the eye. That wasn’t police work. That was frustration. That was a man clutching at straws.
Dusty Springfield was singing an early version of that weird Legrand-Bergman song “Windmills of Your Mind”:
I sipped the tea and nodded in agreement.
18: LIFTED
Days. As Philip Larkin says: days, they come, they wake us, where can we live but days? Friday. Saturday. Sunday. Monday.
This particular day was a Tuesday. The mood was black. A policeman in Lurgan had been killed by a mercury tilt bomb under his Mini Cooper.
“The Chief wants to see you,” Carol said as I came in.
I wonder what I’ve fucked up now, I thought.
I sat down opposite him. “What have I fucked up now?” I said.
He handed me a letter. Scavanni had followed through on his threat. The eejit. It was a boilerplate lawyer’s letter. Words like “intimidation” and “harassment”.
I read it and handed it back.
“You know that you’re off this case, don’t you, son?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you sure you realize that? Am I going to have to explain how the fucking chain of command works around here?”
“No, sir.”
“Tell me you’re not a maverick, Duffy.”
“I’m not, sir.”
“Then why were you hassling a senior Sinn Fein press officer, on a Saturday, outside an auction?”
“I ran into him by accident. It was a coincidence. It won’t happen again, sir.”
“You know what you have, Duffy?”
“What sir?”
“A lean and hungry look, that’s what.”
He glared at me, shook his head, opened a drawer, took out a packet of cigarettes.
“Only child, aren’t you, Duffy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s been my experience that only children never learn when to keep their fucking traps shut. An older brother would have beat that out of you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How are you getting on with the Ulster Bank Fraud?”
“Oh, we solved that easily enough. It was a guy over the water. He didn’t think we Micks would have had the wherewithal to check into the offshore deposits.”
Brennan sniffed and took a draw on his ciggie. He did not seem particularly jubilant about our success. “What are you working on now?”
“The bicycle thefts.”
“Any leads?”
“A couple, sir.”
He nodded. “Do me a favour, Duffy?”
“Yes?”
“Stay the hell away from Freddie Scavanni and anybody else who has access to a scary team of barristers, or hit men, ok?”
I nodded. He waved his hand at me. “Be fruitful and multiply.”
“Yes, sir.”
I was being dismissed but I didn’t move.
“I was telling you to fuck off in a jocular manner, Duffy,” Brennan said.
“I know that, sir. But I have a question.”
“Quickly.”
“Have DCI Todd’s team made any progress on the homosexual murders? I’m only asking because I’ve heard nothing. I was taken off the case after a week because I had made no progress and they’ve had it since Thursday and …”
“You take things personally, Duffy, that’s your trouble. I suppose it’s some kind of Catholic thing. Now, please, get out of my office before I bloody kick you out.”
“With respect, sir, they’ve made no progress because they may be looking in the wrong place. The list of names, the attacks. Why hasn’t there been an attack since last Thursday? Because he doesn’t need to do any more attacks. The scent trail has been sufficiently laid now. We’re off and running. I think there won’t be any more attacks because-”
“Did you not hear me? Get out of my fucking office!”
I skulked back to my desk. Again my cheeks were burning. I’d always been an A student. A good pupil. House Captain. Deputy Head Boy. I had never so much as been sent to the Principal. This was humiliating. Humiliating and I knew that every motherfucker in here was looking at me. Constable bloody Price was positively beaming: that’s taken the uppity fenian down a peg or two.
At lunchtime I went to see Laura at the hospital but she was busy at her surgery.
From the phone box on Barn Road I called my mum. I told her I was well.
“When are you coming to see us? It’s been a month.”
“Next weekend, I promise.”
“Are you sure you’re well? You sound like you’ve got a bit of cold.”
“Nah, nah, I’m fine. Tell Dad I was asking for him.”
I turned up the collar on my coat and walked back out into the rain. A car pulled up next to me with a screech of brakes. Black E Type Jag. Tinted windows. I looked in my raincoat pocket for my service revolver but of course I’d left it at the station.
Billy White opened the rear door and pointed a 9mm at me.
“Let’s go for a ride, Duffy,” he said.
“You’re not going to shoot me in broad daylight,” I said.
